The present invention is related to devices for changeably displaying numerical characters, and particularly to a sign incorporating movable portions which may be adjusted in particular combinations to display different numeral characters.
Signs are frequently used to display prominently the current prices being charged for products, especially such products as gasoline, diesel fuel, and the like at service stations, and key items such as milk, eggs, and fruit sold at roadside stands and grocery stores. Such signs include numeral characters large enough to be read easily by motorists approaching the service station or roadside stand, etc., in time for them to stop and make purchases.
Previously, such signs have frequently utilized separate numeral characters of sheet material cut to the shape of individual digits, with each digit being detachably mounted on a contrasting background member. Changes in the prices displayed on such signs require removal and replacement of individual digit characters. Thus, for prices up to and including nine dollars and ninety-nine cents ($9.99), twenty-nine separate numeral characters are required in order to be able to display each possible price, and as many separate characters are required for each price which is to be displayed. Such replaceable numeral characters, usually made of rigid plastic sheet material, are subject to being broken, either by being blown off the sign and breaking upon impact with the ground, or as a result of being dropped while advertised prices are being changed. Once broken, a numeral must usually be replaced. As a result, spare numerals must be kept on hand, at substantial expense and requiring safe storage space.
In the case of large signs, the unwieldiness of large plastic numerals makes it difficult to accomplish revision of displayed prices in windy weather. Additionally, changing displays often requires climbing to the sign, making the procedure unsafe during all but dry, calm weather.
Electrically controlled multi-element illuminated signs have become available in recent years, and are convenient to use. Such signs, however, are very expensive to build, operate, and maintain. Except for locations atop tall poles along limited access highways and the like, where prices must be seen at great distances in order to attract motorists to leave the highway, such electrically operated signs are too expensive to be practical.
Previous attempts to provide signs in which numeral or alphabetic characters are defined by combinations of movable elements on a signboard have been shown, for example, in Burnham U.S. Pat. No. 755,272, Jorgensen U.S. Pat. No. 1,357,457, Oelschlaeger U.S. Pat. No. 3,740,878, Giroux U.S. Pat. No. 1,679,520, Dalumi U.S. Pat. Nos. 532,032, 567,379, and 682,177, and Herman German Pat. No. 265,559. These patents show various arrangements for folding or rotating moveable elements of signs to display a contrasting color or a background color at various locations upon a signboard to form various numerals and alphabetic characters. None of these has been entirely satisfactory, however, as evidenced by the lack of their widespread use.
What is needed, therefore, is a more practically changeable numeral display which is easily legible, which is less costly than electrically operated and illuminated signs, which does not require maintenance and storage of a multiplicity of separate characters, and which is relatively immune to being disturbed by wind.